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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

I think we should end all charitable tax deductions for people above a certain net worth. They use that tax advantage either for their vanity or else to convert their money into influence.

Think of Bill Gates in the 90’s vs now. He has far more influence than he ever had, and a large part of it is because of the money he was able to put at a huge tax advantage into his foundation. He probably has a direct line to dozens of heads of state. He probably influences policy across many countries. True, he has used that influence for good, but he got a lot of it at a massive tax advantage.

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Unless you know of some secret section in the tax code, it's not a "2 for 1 deal" - if Bill Gates donates a billion dollars to a charity, it makes sense that it wouldn't be taxable; it's no longer his money. Typically the tax code reduces your income by money for which you don't actually have constructive use.

There are certainly other things like 'in-kind' donations which may reduce tax obligations without necessarily providing a commensurate value, but putting money into bona fide charitable works are not among them.

> it's no longer his money.

That is one of my contentions. Although it is technically no longer his money, he still has a significant amount of control over how it is spent, and that money increases is political power and influence.

And it is not just Bill Gates and a foundation. If I donate $50 to a charity, it is unlikely I have any influence. It is truly not my money.

If however, I donate $50,000,000 to a charity, I exert a lot of control with that money. I can have a huge influence on the direction of the charity, and even likely get somebody fired or appointed to the board of directors.

I am not saying those donations should be illegal, just that we should see that it is different qualitively from a regular donation and not give it tax advantages.

I can think of no reason to believe Bill Gates wouldn't still have a huge foundation, with the attendant influence, even if he'd been unable to take advantage of some (fairly minor in the grand scheme of things) tax savings along the way.

Before that it might be wise though to have the government actually provide the services that charities are providing at the moment. Paying off medical debt, investing in medical research, running UBI experiments, funding basic care for homeless or the poor or children - much if not all of this is left to philantropists and churches at the moment. For what it's worth, citizens are running fundraisers for essential services like police and firefighters - so many that fraud is so rampant that the FTC has its own advisory page (https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0085-fundraisers-calli...). Or school funding, where citizens have to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in some instances to keep them open (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_fundraising).

Cutting tax deductions would likely eliminate a significant portion of that spending, leaving those depending on it pretty much screwed. And that doesn't even include outright shit like police funds coming out of "asset forfeiture", leading to heaps of abuse.

From an European point of view, so much of what I wrote above is... mind boggling.

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